Hayley Reardon is fascinated by the mystery of knowing. Her upcoming release, entitled Where I Know You, artfully explores what it means to see and understand both ourselves and the people around us. The project offers a deeply personal reflection on the way in which stories allow us to know parts of people that are no longer there.

For Reardon, this EP is a celebration of coming home to herself and sharing the stories of people that have influenced her own life narrative. Growing up in Massachusetts, Reardon’s passion for story began at a very young age when she picked up her mother’s old Epiphone and began writing folk songs. Since her early beginnings, Reardon has shared the stage with acts like Lori McKenna, Anais Mitchell, Jessica Lea Mayfield, and Birds of Chicago, among others. Her raw artistry boasts a lyrical and melodic weight far beyond her years, proven in her previous releases. Having had her music described as “brilliantly moving folk/pop with a lyrical depth and soul” (Performer Magazine) and “a melancholy little masterpiece” (American Songwriter Magazine), Reardon is reconnecting with herself and her creativity like never before.

The result, Where I Know You, contains an understated depth and wisdom that has far more in common with the likes of Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams, and Tracy Chapman than many of today’s young pop singer/songwriters. Through her soft guitar picking and distinctively rich voice, Reardon eloquently recalls the folk tradition of yesterday with an unmistakably modern acoustic sound. It is her gift for relatable songwriting, however, that enables her to hold listeners in the palm of her hand with intimately vulnerable and contemplative lyrics.

You can hear that intimacy in the single “Where I Know You” as Reardon softly sings “when we finally found the grave/ I saw your father on your face.” Further listening of the EP reveals several melodic and lyrical hooks like that of the chorus in “Bethany” where she sings “she was free but freedom never comes easy/ and love it never comes freely.” Inviting all to huddle in closer, Reardon becomes a teller of tales as each track reflects a different piece of personal history.

The idea behind Where I Know You was born after Hayley embarked on an unique tour of intimate spaces and non-traditional venues across the UK in 2017. With the help of London based production company, Webb Street Studios, Reardon created “The Handwritten Sessions,” subsequently releasing a candid live video series and tour documentary. “On that tour there was nothing to hide behind,” Reardon explains, “it was just me in a living room or a barn or a backyard, sometimes even without amplification. All I had were these stories of my life and the people who have shaped it — and for the first time that felt like enough.”

Once back in the US, Reardon collaborated with longtime friend Ryan Hommel at a beautiful studio in rural Vermont to bring these intimate, personal songs to life. The full EP, Where I Know You, will be available on all platforms in March of 2019.

The nine songs that make up “Odds” deal with apparent contrasts. Every time a song appears to be tangible, it dissolves right in front of you. Rearing instrumentals follow slow, viscous moments. The songs soar, again and again, with the help of uncommonly dense sound structures, so that they eventually become orchestral entities fueled by string players, wind instruments, vibraphone, pedal steel guitar and percussion, and then they eventually collapse. Garda, essentially a sixpiece from eastern Germany around singer and songwriter Kai Lehmann, always embraced a very open and collaborative form of up to 11 musicians on stage at a time. Even more so in the studio.

“Odds“ wasn’t an easy album to make. The countless concerts for its predecessors “Die, Technique, Die!“ (2008) and “A Heart of Pro“ (2012) had taken them all across Europe, playing festivals such as Maifeld Derby, Orange Blossom Special, Eurosonic, and the Communion Nights in London, as well as a 10-day-tour through Japan for their Japanese label Moorworks. The new record then took about four years in the studio – experimenting, reworking, looking for an unused aesthetic. It rises above the band’s original folk context, condensing into complex formations, densely woven and majestic. Surprisingly straying into catchy pop territory at times, then skittering off into a raw and rugged energy. The dynamics and the force behind their live shows have been captured in these recordings at Hotel Albert Studios and the mastering of Doug van Sloun (Omaha/Nebraska, Bright Eyes, Cursive,…). Production by Uwe Pasora and mixing by Jörg Siegeler at Kanal 24 lent the final record a very forward looking sound, whereas, once again, friends and relatives such as the string quartet „Ensemble Tanderas“ as well as members of the traditional Ore Mountains brass band “Oederaner Blasmusikanten” make an appearance.

While listening to “Odds” one can get the feeling of going deeper and deeper into the woods, mighty trees and pines protrude into the sky. There are so many trees that the new canopy of the forest becomes the sky itself. Our only steady companion is Lehmann’s voice with its emotional intensity so tremendous at times, it let’s these vast orchestral structures tumble and fall and so frail at others that it threatens to disappear.

Hitchhiking fate to the family star, My Baby ran away to join the circus. They made their way through Europe in a procession of caravans, as part of a vaudeville troupe they’d met in Spain. Wheeling into town after town, performing every night and practising in the day, My Baby learnt the art of performance. As sword-swallowing and knife throwing were not skills at which they excelled, they found in the mixing of their voices a magic that brought the rowdy audience of drunks and boisterous children under their spell. When the two brothers and one sister held certain harmonies it was as if the alchemy of the moment ran like quicksilver through the crowd.

On one particularly humid night, somewhere in the south, My Baby were playing a bar which liked to book up and coming acts. It got humid as hell that night, the place was packed, and the tmosphere was fully charged. It took them a while to get on stage (I found out later that was due to an argument among the musicians about whether Mohammed Ali would have been better at the trumpet or guitar). The audience started to get impatient. It was like the mood of the weather and the feeling in the room were connected. And when the heavens finally opened, and they took the stage, a flood of relief rushed across us all.

By the third song, I was on stage. Part of a group with their arms around the brother, who was smiling at us while singing and playing drums. It was a spell to stand there, in the middle of those three-part harmonies, standing on stage and looking back at the swaying mass that was the audience. I saw couples grabbing each other close, whispering confessions; I saw groups hanging off the stage and nestled up amongst the piano; girls lying in the beams, smoking in the ceiling. They sang along with the choruses, they applauded with love at the end of each song and they willed My Baby to sing more, to sing better, to take them somewhere special.

Midnight Turns came at us out of the dark, a benediction of light as the storm played away outside, clearing the air and returning to us some feeling of grace. It was a perfect performance, My Baby as singers but also as a singing family, travelling through the world and trying to sing the truth of what they see. The last note faded, sacred, and, for one second, everything remained in perfect equilibrium. This was rudely broken by the banging entrance of three policemen, none of them smiling. They marched towards the stage with expressions as implacable as mountains and a body-language that spoke of unfriendly things.

The musicians were already in their cars by the time My Baby made it out the back. They hid for a while under one of the old wagons. Then they ran for it and by grace and good footwork, got themselves down to the railway tracks. The summer air, cleared after the storm, was sweet and three teenagers stood, for a second, in freedom and wonder. It was then they felt the tingle of the tracks, the rumble of something coming unmistakably down the line. They hopped their first train, and it took them to freedom and the stars. #hamburgerküchensessions

Melanie has been described by the Sydney Morning Herald as having a voice of ‘the utmost delicateness’, as a ‘songwriting gem’ by The Australian. Based in Candelo in southern NSW, Melanie has recorded Eleven albums and EPs including her latest solo album, ‚Song to Sing on a Saturday Night‘ and this August’s release duo album ‚The World Has A Gentle Soul‘ with Steve Appel. Melanie’s critically acclaimed album The Cloud Appreciation Society was long-listed for the 2013 Australian Music Prize, Quatre Chemins for the 2015 Australian Music Prize, and she was nominated for an APRA award in 2011.

She has toured with Glen Hansard and The Frames, Jason Mraz, Bernard Fanning, Lou Rhodes, Slaid Cleaves and Sarah Blasko among others, as well as touring extensively on her own in Australia and Europe. Melanie recorded an album in French, which was funded by the highly successful Pozible campaign and gave Melanie a six month residency in France, writing songs with poet Alain Rivet and pop icon Helena Noguerra. Melanie has also written songs with Wendy Matthews and Catherine Britt, and for film and television.

Despite her youth, 2017 has been an exciting year for the 18 year old artist. Kicking off with the release of ‘Fake ur Death’; featured on Tom Robinson’s weekly mixtape on BBC Radio 6, selected as ‘Track of the Day’ by BBC Across the Line (calling it “Emotive, engaging and just a little dangerous”, as well as being lauded by Jim Carroll of the Irish Times as a “talent on the rise”.

ROE’s latest single ‘Cheek, Boy’ (released on March 10th) garnered considerable attention upon release. It subsequently resulted in a televised performance on BBC Two’s ‘The Arts Show’. The track was selected for the ‚Listening Post‘ playlist for that week’s ‚Fresh on the Net’ where it was described as “A lovely little pop-nugget… ROE’s voice is one with more wisdom than her years suggest.”

Since then, ROE has gone on to become the voice of the ‘Visit Derry’ tourism campaign, with her music being featured in an international TV advert to promote the city. ‘Fake ur Death’ was recently used as the music bed for part of Harp’s ‘Pure Here’ campaign and ‘Cheek, Boy’ was on an episode of ITV’s ‘The Only Way is Essex‘.

With performances at Output (Belfast) and The Great Escape music showcase (Brighton) already under her belt, ROE has been moving from strength to strength with increasing momentum. Selected as one of 21 acts from around the UK (the only Northern Irish artist) to perform on the BBC Introducing stage at Glastonbury, the future looks incredibly bright for ROE.

‘You Call it Art’ is out now on Fictive Kin Records and is available worldwide via all major digital retailers and physically on her label’s e-store.